by Julie Caplin
‘Hi, it’s me. Would you mind meeting me at the patisserie instead of the museum. I’ve got something to show you?’
‘Oh goodie. I’m starving,’ replied Maddie. Nina smiled – she couldn’t wait to see Maddie’s face. The other girl was going to get so much more than she expected.
Now that the layer of greasy dust had been removed and she could see the jewel-bright colours, she could see some parts where the paint had faded or been scraped away but despite that it was absolutely beautiful. She felt Marcel crouch down next to her.
‘Shall we?’ he asked, holding up a small crowbar.
They worked side by side, the only sound the groans of the panels creaking away from their bearings. As Marcel removed them, she moved in and carefully cleaned the surface.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ asked Nina suddenly. Silence didn’t suit her.
‘You can ask.’
‘You were once at the Savoy. How did you end up here? I mean surely you could work anywhere?’ Now she’d voiced the question, she felt horribly intrusive.
‘Sorry, its none of my business.’
‘I worked at the Grosvenor. The Dorchester. Chewton Glen. Gleneagles.’ Marcel let out a sour laugh. ‘I earned well but there was a price to pay. I lost my wife. We were going on holiday but I had to work, so we agreed I’d meet her in Brittany. But I was late leaving work. I was always late leaving work. It was a continual complaint from my wife. I missed the ferry. My wife was killed in a car accident while I was on the ferry. If I’d have been there, she wouldn’t have been driving.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nina, feeling totally inadequate at the sound of listless acceptance in his voice and unable to voice the platitude that it hadn’t been his fault. He clearly believed it was.
‘It was a long time ago.’ He shrugged. ‘I live with my sister. She’s on her own. A single mum and she works shifts. It’s ironic.’ He curled his lip. ‘I help with her children. It means she doesn’t have to worry about being late.’
Even though he was one of the stiffest, least tactile people she’d ever met, Nina couldn’t help but reach out and touch his shoulder.
‘That must be nice for her. Having family to support her.’
For the first time since she’d met him, a full smile lifted Marcel’s sad, basset hound face, reaching his eyes which shone with pride. ‘They are wonderful children.’
For the next few minutes Marcel spoke of his two nephews, and it was clear that he adored them.
‘You should take them some éclairs,’ said Nina.
‘Thank you. If I may, I will but…’ Marcel’s mouth pursed but there was a rebuking twinkle in his eye. ‘I think it’s time you spread your wings. You have mastered the éclairs. We need something new for the customers.’ He nodded at the wall. ‘Something worthy of this fine art.’
By the time Maddie arrived they’d stripped the panelling from the whole of one wall.
‘Oh my God.’ Maddie barrelled to a halt as she came into the patisserie. ‘Oh my God.’ She came to stand next to Nina. ‘That’s just stunning.’ She stood gazing at the first section of the mural before slowly walking along the whole length. ‘It reminds me of John Williams Waterhouse, but more impressionistic. It’s … it’s…’ She lifted her hands palms upwards.
‘Who’s he?’ asked Nina feeling rather ignorant.
‘You’d recognise his work. He did the famous The Lady of Shallot and quite a few of Ophelia. Pre-Raphaelite. English but Italian inspired.’ Maddie couldn’t take her eyes off the painting and reached out to trace the silky skein of red gold hair of one of the mermaids. ‘Mermaid or nymph. This is just gorgeous. Why would anyone hide it away?’
‘I guess it went out of fashion,’ said Nina. ‘And there are some parts, look—’ she pointed to a very faded patch ‘—that need some work. Maybe they couldn’t afford to restore it … or didn’t love it enough.’
‘Hmph,’ said Marcel and muttered something under his breath as he stomped back to his usual spot behind the counter. The brief fragile accord between them seemed to have shattered but Nina had a handle on him. Underneath the scowly, grumbly mậitre d’ was a man with a heart. Not a soft heart but a heart. And that would do for starters.
‘What if you had someone who could restore it and love it enough to do the most fabulous job?’ Maddie cocked her head to one side. ‘Not being modest or anything but I’m a ruddy good painter.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes … well, good enough. Why do you think I’m studying History of Art? I love paintings.’
‘You’re an artist?’
‘Ha! No. I’m not bad with a paintbrush, dab hand with charcoal but … seriously? People like me don’t become artists.’ She laughed good-naturedly. ‘We need to earn money. History of Art is bad enough … who knows if I’ll ever get a job?’
‘Do you think you could…’ Nina nodded towards the mermaid.
Maddie pursed her lips together for a moment and then took a step forward, bending down to study the faded section of the picture, her finger tracing an outline on the wall, before saying thoughtfully, ‘Yes, I think I could. It looks like oil-based paint. The only problem is going to be matching the paint and pigments. It would be helpful to know when this was painted.’
‘Do you think it’s really old? Could it be valuable? We washed it…’ Nina put her hands to her cheeks. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have.’
Looking down at the bowl of water, Maddie patted her on the hand. ‘Don’t fret. A little bit of soap and water won’t have done any harm and I’m sorry love, it’s not that old. Not buried treasure. Definitely post-war. I’ve got a reasonable idea but…’ She bent again to look at the mermaid.
‘Marcel!’ Nina called to him, hoping he might know. ‘Do you know when this was painted?’
She could see him muttering to himself and any moment now she expected him to start counting on his fingers. He came over to join them, still frowning in concentration.
‘I believe it must have been sometime after the Fifties. That’s when the patisserie opened. I remember my mother telling me it used to be … un cordonnier … to mend shoes.’
Maddie high-fived Nina. ‘Told you I was good and that’s brilliant because it means they would have used reasonably modern paints and pigments, which I can pick up.’ She pulled out her phone and began taking pictures. ‘I need to get an idea of the paint colours I need.’
After half an hour of photo taking, scribbling notes and lengthy mutterings to herself, Maddie finally sat down to drink the coffee Marcel had brought over.
‘Shame about the pink dado rail,’ said Maddie, ‘and the paint above. I wonder what it was like before. If we’re going to restore Melody here, it would be nice to do it all properly.’
‘I can show you.’ Nina walked to the first of the gilt mirrors and beckoned Maddie over. ‘Ta-dah!’
Within an hour Maddie was back, armed with paints, brushes, china palettes and other materials that she flatly refused to let Nina pay for. ‘I tapped one of the other students on my floor for some of this stuff, so I didn’t buy much. This is going to be the best fun ever, I should be paying you,’ she said as she set up camp on the floor. ‘With the exception of one really worn patch, it’s really just going to be touching up.’
Nina suspected it was a lot more than that and that Maddie was being modest. She’d certainly brought enough tubes of paint.
Leaving Maddie lost in intense concentration, Nina retreated to the kitchen, smiling as she took the steps down into the big silent room. It was the quietest and most still she’d ever heard or seen the other girl.
‘And how’s the delectable Sebastian?’ asked Maddie, with a sly look on her face as they settled down in the café with a glass of red wine each.
They’d both worked hard all day, forgoing the museum trip and only stopping for lunch when Marcel had insisted they come and eat the sandwiches he’d made for them. Nina felt a little despondent this evening. Her attempts today to branch ou
t and make something different had not been a wild success. She’d tried to make religieuse, like she’d seen in Ladurée, and she’d got the icing and flavours right but … her presentation skills had a long way to go. Individually each one looked alright but she hadn’t been able to achieve the uniformity of size of the choux buns. Frankly they looked more like snowmen instead of the well-proportioned head and body of a nun which was the direct translation of the word. The idea was that the delicate white icing between the two choux buns resembled the old-fashioned collars the nuns had worn.
‘Weird,’ replied Nina still distracted by thoughts of her rubbish pastries.
‘How so?’
Nina focused properly, realising Maddie was interested. ‘He phoned me and then wittered on about absolutely nothing. And then asked me to take over a book to him, that I swear he’s not that interested in.’
‘Maybe he just wants to see you,’ said Maddie with a teasing grin.
‘I don’t think so.’ Nina shook her head vehemently. ‘He’s probably just bored and all the people he knows in Paris are probably working. Because I’m working for him, he assumes I’m available and will drop everything and come running.’
‘Yeah but if he’s stuck in a hotel room. He’s probably going stir crazy.’
Being holed up, even if it was in a suite, must be a complete anathema to Sebastian, who was always on the go. Even during the cookery course, when he was supposed to be sitting down, he couldn’t manage to stay seated for more than ten minutes.
‘Oh God, I’m so dense. Of course, that explains it. He’s not the least bit interested in seeing me. He’s desperate and he knows I’m obliged to him, so I’ll have to go over.’
Maddie laughed. ‘Don’t you feel the least bit sympathetic?’
‘No,’ said Nina. ‘Not really. Well, a little bit. OK, yes I do.’
‘You know whenever you talk about him, you get all tense and hunched in the shoulders.’ Maddie gave her a very direct look. ‘He seems pretty nice to me. A bit intense. But he’s quite a hottie. So, what’s the story between the two of you?’
‘What do you mean?’ Her rapid fire defensive response brought a superior look to Maddie’s face.
‘I thought as much.’
‘There’s nothing between us. Never has been. Never will be.’
‘Sounds like you’ve given it thought.’
‘He’s my brother’s best friend. Hanging around in my life for as long as I can remember. We don’t get along. End of story. And stop!’ Nina swiped at Maddie’s hand on the table at the sight of the sly smile playing around her lips.
‘So what happened?’
‘Maddie!’ Nina pursed her lips. ‘God, you really are like a dog with a bone.’
‘Yup, tenacious terrier, that’s me. So something did happened between you and sexy Sebastian.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. He’s … OK, yes there’s something about him.’
‘Even Marguerite thinks he’s smoking.’
‘Really? That was her description?’ Nina raised a sceptical eyebrow unable to help herself smiling.
Maddie gurgled with laughter. ‘No, more along the lines of he’s very handsome and if she were forty years younger she would be dusting down her feminine wiles. And Jane said, out of earshot of Peter to be fair, that he had a certain je ne sais quoi about him.’
‘I suppose,’ said Nina with a huff, ‘he’s OK looking.’ Maddie’s mouth twitched as Nina rolled her eyes. ‘He certainly seems to attract a legion of drop dead gorgeous, legs up to their armpits, skinny blondes who think he’s God’s gift in the kitchen.’
‘Ah, but is he God’s gift elsewhere? That’s what we want to know.’ Maddie raised her eyebrows in Groucho Marx style making Nina burst out laughing.
‘That, I definitely don’t know.’
‘Ooh but you do know something.’
‘God, they should employ you at MI6. I’ve never told anyone this.’ Nina traced the metal rim of the café table with one finger, already feeling her face flushing. ‘I kissed him. Once.’
‘You kissed him.’
‘Yup.’ Nina winced. Even now, the memory was excruciating. That heart-pounding moment when she’d screwed up every last bit of courage, raised herself onto her tiptoes and kissed him right on the lips. She’d even convinced herself in the first few seconds of her amateur onslaught that his lips might have softened and even maybe moved and that he’d perhaps taken a step towards her. And for one delicious yessss! moment, all her dreams and fantasies came true. And then they came crashing down in crushing rejection when he firmly took her arms and pushed her away.
‘Oh God.’ Nina put her head in her hands. ‘It wasn’t reciprocated. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. I had this stupid teenage crush and convinced myself that he felt the same way. So I went for it.’ She shook her head. ‘Honestly, the look on his face. Sheer horror.’
Maddie’s face crumpled in sympathy. ‘Eek. What did you do?’
‘The only thing I could do. I fled. Left the house. Hid in the barn until really late. Luckily I’d been supposed to be going to a schoolfriend’s house after school, so no one missed me.’
‘But what about the next time you saw him?’
‘That was about my only saving grace. By pure chance, desperation I guess on my part, he was going back to university the following day. Down to London. I didn’t see him again for years. And it’s never been spoken of since.’
‘And you’ve never told anyone?’
‘Nope, although I think my brother Nick suspected something as I was at such pains to avoid Sebastian whenever he came back from uni and I guess he was reluctant to visit the way he had before. Yeah, Nick definitely knew something wasn’t right.’
‘That does sound … how many years ago was that?
‘Nearly ten. And I know it’s stupid, at some point I should have said something, like “oops what an idiot. Sorry I had a crush on you.” But the next time I saw him was at a wedding and he had this super-duper, glamorous, gorgeous, grown up woman with him.’ The sort of woman that was everything Nina wasn’t and he was probably totally unaware that she felt her nose was well and truly being rubbed in it, almost as if he were saying, this is what I like, not you. ‘And over the years I’ve just sort of over compensated and been very cool with him. Make sure he knows that I’m absolutely not interested.’ She groaned. ‘Except that I always seem to manage to make a complete prat of myself whenever he’s around.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Oh dear indeed. I was at my friend’s wedding. I love her dearly but her idea of a bridesmaid’s dress, well, think peach meringue and the kind of fabric that could fire up a small power station with the amount of static electricity it produces and you have it. Unfortunately, the dress was so highly charged that the fabric wrapped itself around my legs and I kind of stumbled, which would have been fine if I hadn’t been carrying two glasses of red wine and Sebastian and another one of his uber cool girlfriends weren’t right in my path.’
‘Ouch. What did you do?’
‘Well, I would have apologised and offered to take her to help get cleaned up and borrow some other clothes, if I’d got the chance, but she was incandescent and let rip.’ The scene was permanently embedded in her mind on a loop of doom. Blondie screaming, ‘You stupid girl! Why don’t you look where you’re going?!’ ‘Of course, all I could do after that was stutter random half apologies like a pathetic idiot.’
‘That sounds awful.’
‘It was because she made such a big scene that everyone knew about it. I wanted to die. It was bad enough that I looked my most hideous, did I mention I also had an eye infection so was already rocking the Quasimodo look, but then to stand there with everyone looking at me dripping in red wine. Quite the worst thing. So, there you have it. Reasons why me and Sebastian are not the best of friends.’
‘So if it were anyone else but Sebastian holed up in that hotel room, what would you do?’ The sly look was back on her face.
‘Don’t go feeling too sorry for him. He’s in a suite.’
‘Ninaaa.’
‘How do you do that?’
‘Do what? And stop changing the subject!’
‘You’re the same age as me but you’re doing that voice of reason thing, that mums do.’
Maddie grinned. ‘That’s because I’m the oldest of four, remember?’
‘And you have no idea how it is to be the youngest of four. And if it were anyone but Sebastian, I’d ask Marguerite if I could borrow her wheelchair and offer to take him out for a while.’
Maddie shot her a cheeky grin. ‘Go on. Do it. You know you want to.’
Nina gave her a mock glare. ‘I’m not sure I do. He probably won’t even appreciate it.’
‘You’ll never find out if you don’t try,’ said Maddie, with an altogether too knowing expression on her face.
Chapter 23
It was only when she was loading the empty wheelchair into the lift, having walked through the lobby to a few bemused glances and feeling as if she were Nurse Numpty with no patient, that she began to worry about the wisdom of what she was about to suggest. The Sebastian of her youth, friend to her brother, would probably have found it a hoot to use a wheelchair, and she could imagine Nick charging along pushing him. Elder statesmen and full-blown fuddy-duddy Sebastian probably wasn’t going to be that keen, in fact this was probably a complete waste of time. Added to which, she’d gone and left his blasted book behind. Not that she believed for one minute that he actually wanted it.
She left the wheelchair outside the door and knocked sharply to announce her arrival.
‘Good Lord, you’re on time.’
‘Morning, how are you?’
‘Fine,’ he growled. ‘Bored. Everyone is either working or away.’
The windows were all open and a light breeze played with the voile curtains tossing them playfully into the room around Sebastian.
‘It’s gorgeous out there.’ She hesitated a fraction of a second and then decided there was no point building up to it. ‘Do you fancy going out?’